I was having so much fun I failed to take notes, but sometimes guest columnist Steven Mirkin, a longtime music journalist, was paying more attention. Here is his review of Saturday night’s show.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n By Steven Mirkin<\/p>\n Remain in Light<\/em> has never been my go-to Talking Heads album. I prefer More Songs About Buildings and Food<\/em>\u00a0or their debut,\u201877<\/em>, albums that drew from their CBGB repertoire, and sound more like the band I fell in love with in the mid-\u201870s: angsty, skeletal funk and R&B in the service of songs that approached quotidian subjects from odd angles. They were smart, approachable, and funny.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But Talking Heads were never\u00a0a band to sit still; when they reached the limitations of their original minimalist art-rock, they moved on, adding former Modern Lover Jerry Harrison less than two years after the 1975 debut, expanding the band again in 1980 to perform the African-influenced music heard on <\/span>Remain in Light <\/em>and<\/span> Speaking in Tongues<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n African music had been circulating through the downtown underground: the Minimalist work of Steve Reich, the albums compiled by John Storm Roberts for his Original Music label, and early tours of Fela Kuti and King Sunny Ade, who stunned audiences with their energy, invention, passion, and the sheer length of their shows, which could extend past three hours. Talking Heads were among the first rock bands to fully embrace it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Listening to Remain in Light<\/em> today, you can still hear the excitement of the band figuring out a new way to make music. Instead of writing traditional songs, the band built the songs up from the grooves. Most of them are repeated single chord vamps with Byrne\u2019s twitchy, strangled vocals floating on top, addingmelodies. It\u2019s a nervous, worried album for nervous, worried times, and arguably the best melding of African and rock sounds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s such a complete meld, that when Angelique Kidjo, the Benin-born singer-songwriter that NPR called \u201cAfrica\u2019s greatest living diva,\u201d first heard the album in 1983, she was convinced they were an African band, and didn\u2019t know their American roots until she saw them in concert. She was so impressed, that 35 years later, she covered the album in its entirety for her new album, also called Remain in Light<\/em>, due out June 8th on Kravenworks Records. It\u2019s also the centerpiece of her current tour, which played the Theater at the Ace Hotel Saturday night, the closing concert of CAP UCLA\u2019s season.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/MI0003669211-200x300.jpg\")
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<\/a>Hearing Kidjo and her bi-racial, intercontinental band play those songs was a pleasantly jarring experience, like reading a book originally written in English, translated to a foreign language, then re-translated back into English; it might not be exact, but new shadings and understandings arise.<\/p>\n